Koga's Challenge
by ishouldntbeawake
Summary: Kiara is beautiful, young, and a widow seeking revenge. Koga is cocky, determined and the object of her anger. Just one problem: Koga is innocent. Can he reign in Kiara to unmask the real villain or is he not up to the challenge? better summary inside!


Hello all!

So, I promised a better summary and here it is:

Kiara's village is attacked by wolves and wolf demons and her new husband is killed, along with any of her hopes of leading a normal life as a mother and wife. With nothing but anger, three long scars and a memory of Koga's name to go on, Kiara sets out for revenge. However, she finds out that Koga, shockingly enough, didn't orchestrate her village slaughter. Now the two must work together to find the real villain, clearing Koga's name and avenging the death of Kiara's husband. But when two such intense, sensual, determined people spend so much time arguing, chasing and coping, theres always more than a common cause between them.

_Howling. _

_And screams. Horrible screams. _

_The smell of coppery blood permeating the air. _

_The stench of shredded flesh._

_A sharp pain in her side as she is thrown._

_The heat of a burning hut to her left._

_A torn and mauled leg to her right._

_The suffocating black smoke all around her._

_Children sobbing in terror. Women begging for mercy._

_A weight on her chest. The sting of claws digging into her neck._

"_Why?" she weakly demands of her assailant. _

"_You can thank Koga for this," the demon laughed, the sound a sick mutated growl._

_Suddenly, her name. She knew that voice._

_Kai?_

_He was screaming her name. _

_Then...nothing._

_His screams had stopped, his heart now separated from his rib cage. _

_It was then that hers started._

"Kai!" Kiara called out desperately, rocketing up into a sitting position on her mat on the floor. She was coated in a light sheen of sweat, her hair plastered to her forehead as her chest rose and fell in petrified spasms. Her lungs expanded and collapsed furiously, fighting to distribute oxygen to her trembling body.

"It was just a dream," she gasped aloud to the empty room, running a shaking hand through her hair. "Just a dream."

But it was more than a dream. More than a nightmare even. It was a memory. Her memory. And as it did every night, the sound of her husband's voice screaming out her name with his dying breath left her feeling broken and suffocated.

_Air. I need air._ she thought as she slowly stood, her muscles taught from fright. She made her way outside, leaving the sliding door open behind her, hoping the crisp night air would cleanse the small bedroom of the smells she could never escape.

Her stomach turned at the reminder of the odor of torn and burning flesh. She hadnt had a piece of meat in the seven months since the attack happened. What animal claws could do to human skin and bone was terrifying. Thinking of the gruesome wounds inflicted on her fellow villagers, Kiara reached up reflexively to run gentle fingertips over her own physical reminders. Three long thin scars ran from the base of her left ear down her neck and across her collarbone to end in jagged tears on the cap of her shoulder.

The scars themselves had taken a month to heal and in that month all she could do was lay in bed and think. About Kai. About the men and women she had considered friends. About her plans to become a mother. And about that name.

Her heart seized painfully at the recollection of everything she had lost and for the millionth time since that night she wished she could close her eyes for just a moment and not remember, not feel.

"The memories will stop when his spirit is avenged," she reminded herself, repeating the same mantra she did every night in a futile attempt to calm her racing heart. She could have no rest until Kai and all of those innocents were avenged and their souls set free. Her fingers tightened angrily around the wooden railing bordering the back of the hut as she forced the world to stop spinning. Too many sleepless nights and endless days spent walking were taking their toll. her emotions too often overcame her. But redirecting that anger and loss and channeling it into her mission gave her some closure and soon she was able to breath normally again.

All she wanted was her life to be her own once more. To fall asleep and stay asleep until sunrise without tears and pain.

"_You can thank Koga for this."_

Oh, she would thank Koga alright, she thought as she pressed her warm palm to her cool scars. But it would be for the scarf his fur would provide once she separated it from his body.

"What should I care if another village's been attacked?" Koga growled at Ginta, annoyed at the interruption of his wolves feeding time to listen to Ginta and Hakkaku worry about villages of humans.

"Its the fifth village this month," Hakkaku spoke up, as if it explained everything.

Koga waited a moment to see if there was anything else. Anything remotely interesting. After about five seconds he tossed the femoral bone he had been picking clean aside and stood. "Stop worrying about humans. We have bigger fish to fry. Like that mutt Inuyasha and the jewel shards."

"But Koga, everyone thinks its us killing the humans," Ginta persisted.

"So?" demanded Koga, officially out of patience.

"Some of the elders are saying there will be priestesses after us if it keeps happening," Hakkaku replied, Ginta shaking his head in confirmation.

"If they send priestesses we'll just kill them. Enough of this mortal talk, we're going in circles and it's starting to piss me off. Any update on Naraku?"

Koga had a pretty one track mind. He was the young new leader of the entire wolf demon clan and half of his brothers and sisters had been slaughtered by that bastard Naraku. Why Ginta and Hakkaku cared so much about humans thinking it was their clan doing all the murdering was peripheral at this point. It didn't matter.

What mattered was ripping Naraku's heart out and there was no way Koga was going to let anything distract him, especially not a bunch of dead humans.

NEXT CHAPTER: Koga and Kiara finally meet. And he learns why he should pay attention to a bunch of dead humans. Kiara, however, isnt exactly the submissive type. Is he up to the challenge?

First Inuyasha fanfic. And first fanfic under this penname. Leave a review and let me know what you think. =]

As a general rule, the more reviews I get, the longer the following chapter will be. Many reviews= many words and a juicier story. After THREE (3) reviews I will start to write the next installment.

So the faster you review, the faster the story gets posted!


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